


A Quiet Night At Home

by nightrose



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, sherlock comes home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 09:09:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrose/pseuds/nightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock comes home, John is not surprised. Holiday gift for Abby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quiet Night At Home

When Sherlock comes home, John is not surprised. John is a doctor and he’s had to tell people that their loved ones are dead. He’s well aware that people are supposed to move through stages—that at some point, he should have started believing that Sherlock wasn’t going to come back, that he should have been angry and then grieved and then finally accepted the reality and the inevitability of the truly unthinkable. He should have. He didn’t. So when Sherlock knocks on the door after two long years, John opens it. “Come in. You look freezing. I’ll make us a cup of tea.”

It’s December. Snow is falling. John vaguely remembers that Lestrade and Molly are supposed to come over tomorrow for a Christmas party, and then he told Harry he would spend the day with her and Clara. None of that seems important now.

Sherlock stands in the doorway and looks at John as if John is the one who is likely to be a ghost. He stares, and stares, until John is more than a little uncomfortable, squirming under the intensity of Sherlock’s gaze. Then, all at once, Sherlock moves.

It takes John a second to realize what’s happening. Sherlock is hugging him. It’s so profoundly out of character that it doesn’t make sense for a few long seconds, until suddenly it does. Suddenly everything makes sense, everything is right, and John throws his arms around Sherlock.

“God, you’ve gotten so thin. Have you eaten at any point in the last two years, Sherlock?”

“Yes. On several occasions.”

“Several? I’ll get you a sandwhich with your tea.” John doesn’t really want to pull away from Sherlock, but Sherlock’s skin is cold against his, and his body is shaking. He takes Sherlock’s hand, which feels a little more callused, a little rougher, than it had, and leads him into the flat. 

Sherlock eats, and drinks, in total silence and without any comment. He doesn’t dare say anything. When the food is gone, he at last looks up at John. “I don’t expect your forgiveness,” he says quietly.

John doesn’t say anything, just starts washing up the dishes from Sherlock’s snack.

“Honestly I didn’t exactly expect you to even let me back in, John. But I—I am glad you did.”

“I couldn’t have done anything else,” John says, and it’s not quite the truth. He could have closed the door on Sherlock’s face. Before the hospital roof, it would have been unthinkable. Before two years of thinking Sherlock is dead, he couldn’t have imagined rejecting his friend that way. Now, he can just barely fathom a universe in which that would be possible. 

But it isn’t this one, and Sherlock must know that. John is hardly about to let him leave again, much less make him.

“I have missed you. Very much.”

“Where were you?”

“Moriarty’s network is extensive and dangerous. It was difficult to take it apart, but it would have been inpossible had I been thought alive. I had the element of surpri-“ the word breaks off into an immense yawn.

“Yes. Well, we’ll have time to hear about that. Later, I imagine.”

“Plenty of time. As long as you’ll have me, John.”

“Forever, then,” John answers, and it isn’t melodramatic at all. Just true. “Now, let’s get you off to bed.”

“Come with me?” Sherlock asks, voice plaintive. “I don’t—I hardly expect things to go back to the way they were. But I don’t want—“

“We’ll sleep together. Just sleep, Sherlock. You need rest. But—yes. All right.” He doesn’t admit that he doesn’t really want Sherlock any further away than that himself, but it isn’t until they’re both in bed, Sherlock’s arms wrapped securely around John’s waist, that John breathes for the first time, breathes in the smell of Sherlock, feels him there as solid as the bed beneath them, hears his heart beating in the silence of the night, and starts to really believe that he’ll be there in the morning.

It isn’t just a dream.


End file.
